A one mile hike in the dark by a narrow and crooked path.
A hundred pounds of weight across two backpacks and a cord of firewood.
A treacherous freeclimb up a rock cliff without lights or climbing gear, passing bags and firewood back and forth to each other up the chimney chute from one handhold to another.
All of this, to reach this cathedral cavern, with the waning moon peering down at us through the skylight above. Winter rituals are our time for reflection on katabasis, on our pacts, and to honor the centuries old tradition of the crossroads, the threshold, and of bridging the divide between this world and the one below. By candle and moonlight we descend, and return again at the end of it all to the mortal realm above. The journey to the underworld is a cold exercise in discipline in more ways than one.
In Cabal Diaboli we reject the concept of “armchair occultists”. There is no such thing. Real occultists do real work- and sometimes that work is hard. You give us an armchair, and we chop it into kindling, lug it a mile in the dark up a cliff, and use it to ignite a ritual fire in honor of the Devil.
Devotion requires effort and sacrifice. Occultism requires effort and sacrifice. What are you putting forth in this new year? What devotion will you lay at your altars? Let it be something noble, something valuable, and something of which you are proud.